I was able to enter room and board on my children’s personal taxes, but not on my individual taxes as I have in the past. This clearly reduces the education credits I received as a parent paying for my child’s college education. In previous years.
Additionally, the only place to enter College expenses (1098-Q) is on my dependent child’s taxes, not on mine as the parent of said dependent. As such I am restricted to only enter the 1098-T information and book expense in turbo tax as the parent there is no option for Room & Board on the parents taxes, only on the dependent child’s taxes where to 1098-Q is entered.
It’s interesting as my dependent child is told they cannot claim certain educational deductions as they are being claimed as a dependent on a parents taxes, but then things like room & board cannot be entered by the parent.
I have attempted what you recommend, but even then the only way to enter room and board is to manually enter it on the 8863 (?) form and it makes no difference. Turbo tax does NOT provide the option when I (as a parent) select books and expenses to include room & board. At least not in the 2018 tax version.
Granted the change in tax law has greatly increased my tax liability. My refund has been reduced by 66% with the removal of things like Unreimbursed employee expenses and the fact that my tax rate was reduced throughout the year so less tax was withheld initially.
That said, based on turbo taxes algorithms and my inability to enter room & board expenses, my educational credits have dropped from over $7k to $325 this year. AND this year I had 3 at the University of Delaware compare to 2 the previous tax year.
Talk about s kick in the teeth. Either I’ve missed something or the government is milking the middle class or turbo tax missed something. I tend to lean towards the latter two.
